


Five Stages of Grief

by comeoncomeout



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-24 23:30:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20022814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comeoncomeout/pseuds/comeoncomeout
Summary: After the reveal, Lena deals with the loss of her best friend, who’s not dead, just dead to Lena.





	Five Stages of Grief

**Author's Note:**

> I made a playlist [here.](https://open.spotify.com/user/eebmilrax6i11qurn4rv21isu/playlist/2CPcqLYal1s361Xna2kaB2?si=6jo7mdDPTTSiMLnH2Gef_Q)

_i. Denial_

_It’s not possible._

That’s her first thought. Lex is toying with her. Even as the bullets pierce his vital organs and pools of blood leave his body, he’s still the same vengeful bastard he’s always been, the vile narcissistic brother she still loves. Her only living blood relative who she just shot, who found it imperative to use his dying breath to plant seeds of doubt in Lena’s mind.

But the footage on the screens behind Lex’s fumbling body display the truth. Kara Danvers is Supergirl. And yet, it’s not possible. 

Supergirl judges Lena on the premise of her last name. Supergirl betrayed her, and while working with her was essential in bringing down Lex, Lena knew she could never trust her again. It was reasonable, crucial even, to tuck away that bitter resentment towards Supergirl into a box labelled Caution Team Lift. That baggage was too heavy to carry alone without Alex as a buffer. 

And Kara. 

Kara Danvers was her hero. She had never once judged Lena on her last name. In fact she had made certain even in the face of clear video evidence that Lena be viewed as innocent until proven guilty, had vehemently fought and persuaded Supergirl to see that Lena was only guilty by association, guilty in being born a Luthor and nothing more. And Lena would be remorse to neglect the same courtesy to her best friend who had always been there for her since the moment they met. 

When Lex gasps his last breath and the stench of his shit lingers in the air, Lena kicks his chair to the side. She uploads all of the video evidence and wipes his hard drive while she wipes the tears from her eyes. 

She had always imagined attending Lex’s funeral. Lillian would be seated in the front aisle, stone-faced and cold, in an empty Cathedral for just the three of them. Lena would tuck herself in the back and cry for the brother she lost years before the day he’d be six feet under, where he couldn’t hurt anyone anymore. 

Where he couldn’t hurt Lena anymore. 

A funeral is meant for closure for a person’s loved ones. And Lex only ever loved himself. She leaves him to rot.

She washes away the residual scent of Lex’s words from her mind and what she had done. She doesn’t regret it, and it scares her. Grief does strange things to her family, but this doesn’t feel like grief as much as it feels like relief. He can’t hurt her anymore. 

She’ll venture Lex’s tampered video evidence later. There’s no sense in wasting any more time playing Lex’s games. She tucks it away in her Kara box labeled Fragile, Handle with Care and forgets, for now. 

On the following Friday when Kara enthusiastically invites her to game night at J’onn’s, she still hasn’t reviewed the videos, picked them apart with a fine-tooth comb to prove Kara’s innocence. She fiddles with the small backup drive. She doesn’t need to see them again, truly. It’s just a taunt from Lex, nothing more.

She busies herself in her work and loses track of time, the flash drive safely locked in her desk, hammering like a tell tale heart with each passing second, frustratingly loud in her silent office. She hears Supergirl flying by her window and realizes she’s late for game night.

And when she arrives at J’onn’s and sees Kara happy to see her, when J’onn calls her family, she tucks her greatest fear away for another day. 

Yet now, seeing Kara in the flesh, all she can see is Kara without glasses, the pictures of them together on Red Daughter’s wall in Kaznia, and Kara destroying the evidence with heat vision. She puts a tight lid on this particular box around her heart labeled Please Don’t Crush. Not today. 

_ii. Anger_

_She lied to me._

And if Kara can play face for their entire friendship, then surely she deserves a taste of her own medicine. Lena pours herself a drink, drops the flash drive down her garbage disposal in her office sink and listens to it ripping and tearing apart. She doesn’t need to see it again to know it’s true. The boxes are open, and Lex was right. She didn’t want to see what was right in front of her. 

And Lena can’t help but ask herself.. was it all a lie? 

Why had everyone known except for her? 

She ignores Kara’s twelfth call of the day. Later when she’s good and drunk and numb, she’ll feign some project needing her attention. For now, she sits at her desk and stews. 

Before she has even poured her first glass of scotch, Kara is barreling into her office with purpose. Her phone is still in her hand, and Kara looks between her and the device and calms herself.

“Are you okay? If you need space, then I’ll give that to you, but I’m here. If you still want that.” 

And the echo of her own words back to her makes her heart clench. How sincere she had been when she had uttered those same words to Kara, and now it feels like a taunt. Another dirty lie. No one would touch a Luthor with a ten foot pole.

Kara steps closer to her, and Lena realizes she’s crying. She’s just so angry, and even more so when Kara rests a hand on her shoulder, runs her fingers down her exposed arm and chills rise on her skin and a warmth sets in her gut. She melts into it and pulls Kara into her arms before she can think better of it and cries. Regrets, that this may be the last time she does this, accepts a fake love, a fake friend, a fake embrace. It’s all a Luthor has ever known after all, why would Kara be any different?

But she had hoped. God, she had hoped and maybe it’s her anger, maybe it’s because everything is ruined already.

She wants to know what Kara’s lips taste like, if she pours as much softness into her kiss as she does when she hugs Lena. And when Lena pulls back and Kara wipes a tear from her eye, Lena can’t help but look from her eyes to her lips and take the leap.

Surprising Lena, Kara meets her halfway on a shaky exhale with soft lips, as if she’s breathless and Lena is oxygen, barely touching her lips to Lena’s at all. It’s maddening. Lena wonders if Kara even needs Earth’s air and surges forward as her lungs burn in her chest, pressing her lips hard and firm against steel. And Kara takes the aggression, every ounce of it, grabbing Lena’s hips tight and flush against her and caressing her tongue inside Lena’s mouth. 

Lena breaks away and asks, “Do you know what I want, Kara?” 

Kara licks her lips and replies, “No, but I’ll give you whatever you need.” 

_Need_

She needs her best friend to not be a lying asshole. She needs friends that don’t hide from her. She needs someone who believes in her and trusts her. She needs Kara Danvers, the Kara Danvers she thought she knew, not Supergirl, not whoever this person is in front of her now whose lips are kiss swollen and whose hands are on her ass. But she is a Luthor, ever vengeful and calculating. 

“I want you to fuck me.” 

Kara crashes into her, pushing her against her wet bar and hiking her dress up like this is something they’ve done a million times before. Lena climbs onto the counter and spreads her legs to wrap around Kara’s waist. She can feel the damn Super crest under Kara’s shirt, while Kara feels the tiny hairs on her thighs against her fingertips. She wants to scream, but a moan leaves her lips when Kara pulls the fabric of her panties aside with eager hands. 

Kara moans back into her mouth when she feels just how wet Lena is, and Lena should be ashamed at how easily this is getting her off. A cold anger settles in her heart while the warmth rushes between her legs when Kara rubs messily against her clit. 

Lena grabs Kara’s hair and pulls her mouth to her neck. Kara is being too gentle with her, like she’s made of glass, kissing her neck softly and teasing her, fingers now lazily strumming over her clit as if she caught herself and is holding back to not hurt her. Too late for that. 

“I want you inside of me, Kara.” 

She gasps when Kara dips in one experimental finger and moves her dress over her shoulders to kiss and nip at every inch of her exposed skin. With the second finger, Lena’s hands grasp the clasps under Kara’s button up shirt where the Supergirl cape would be if she were her alter ego. Because Kara is fucking Supergirl, and not ace reporter Kara Danvers. 

She screams out when Kara fucks into her particularly hard and flicks her thumb over her clit. Her hips move with each thrust, harder and harder against Kara’s hand until her whole body tightens like a wire. 

“You’re so.” 

She’s coming with Kara’s name on her lips before Kara can finish speaking. She fills in the words herself, “foolish, naive, unloveable.” 

Kara works her through her orgasm, coaxing as much as Lena can give before Lena has to push her hand away. Kara steps back and wipes her slick hand on her crisp navy pants and looks anywhere but at Lena, a hint of a smile trying to play across her lips. 

Arrogant, prideful, Kryptonian bastard, Lena thinks as she steps down on shaky legs and steps into her heel that fell off mid-act. She won’t dare stumble and give the Girl of Steel the benefit of being too smug. 

“You know I could do that again, some other time if you..” 

Lena closes the distance with one final hard kiss to Kara’s lips, “Or we could just take it for what it was, a one off, and forget it ever happened.” 

Kara deflates instantly, and some sick part of Lena feels satisfied with that. 

“Yeah, okay. That works too, if that’s what you need.”

Lena gestures down to the stain on Kara’s chinos, “you should probably go wash those,” and turns back to her glass of scotch, like Kara never walked into her office at all. 

Kara gestures at the door and says, “yeah, sure. Ummm, just call if you need me.” 

When Kara shows up at her doorstep two hours later, not even five minutes after Lena has arrived home, eager lips reaching out and hands pinning her to the back of her front door, Lena tells herself it’ll be one night, one night of letting the madness in heart be doused in lust. 

But with her head between Kara’s thighs, coaxing sounds from that angelic throat with each flick of her rapid tongue, Lena pours more salt into the wound. Again and again like a back and forth dance until Kara is belly down asleep in her bed, blissed out of her mind. Lena isn’t fairing much better herself, sore and bruised all over on the outside. Numb and cold on the inside, mad at something she’ll never have. 

And when she shows up at Kara’s the next night without calling, without talking about this shift in their relationship or the giant secret between them, she chalks it up to needing a place to release her anger. 

Hate fucking her best friend isn’t exactly what she had planned. She says it over and over again, “I fucking hate you Kara Danvers, I hate you.” In her head, at least, with one hand tight at Kara’s scalp and the other flicking her own nipple, like Kara asked. She rides Kara’s strap a little harder, a race to make Kara get off just from this before she falls over the edge herself. Right now Kara is winning, working her up and slamming her hips into the back of Lena’s thighs, interchanging between squeezing and smacking her ass. 

Kara moves Lena’s shaky fingers away and dips her head to suck and lick at her nipple, and Lena has to fight against the climb for release. 

“Are you going to come like this? From me riding you? I bet you’re soaked for me, aren’t you?” 

Kara moans against her chest and picks up her pace, unrelenting and tipping Lena over the edge before she even realizes it. And when Kara’s lips and tongue gently brush with her mouth as she comes down, Lena thinks, “I fucking hate her, but I think I love her.” 

Her boneless legs are tucked out from under her, and her back hits the couch cushions. 

Still inside of her, Lena still clenching and unclenching around the toy, Kara asks, “are you okay? Can you go again?” 

And Lena whimpers out a soft, “yes.” 

——

 _iii. Bargaining_

_If she tells me, we can go back to normal_

Kara paints kisses across her shoulders as the morning sunlight drifts through the windowpanes. She smiles and tickles Lena’s skin with a soft tongue. 

“I can’t go again Kara, don’t even think about it.” 

Kara laughs low and unashamed, “I could give you a massage.” 

“That’s what you said five orgasms ago. I’m only human, not all of us can handle being thoroughly fucked day and night by,” and she stops herself, biting her lip hard as Kara’s kisses seize completely. 

Kara hesitates and then asks, “are you hungry?” 

Lena exhales, not daring to open her eyes and look at Kara, knowing her face is always a tell of exactly what’s going on in her head, “yeah, starved actually.” 

“We could get showered and catch brunch.” 

Lena agrees, but their brunch turns into a late lunch after Kara pins her to the shower wall and goes down on her until the water is ice cold. Kara steals glances at her while she fixes her makeup in the small vanity mirror in Kara’s bedroom. Lena realizes she’s not angry anymore, that maybe the sex worked to quell that Luthor rage boiling under her skin. But taking its place is a guilt she wasn’t expecting, as her best friend stares lovestruck at her and walks over to press a soft kiss to her lips before she can apply her lipstick. She tastes like lip gloss and toothpaste, and Lena pulls her by her shirt collar, flattening it out when she pulls away. 

“If it’s two p.m. can I count this as our first date?” 

Kara’s question makes Lena freeze. There’s a pregnant pause while Lena mauls over what brought them here. Her best friend has been lying to her for years about her superhero alter ego, she asked said best friend to hate fuck her in her office, then her penthouse, on her kitchen counter, her couch, her shower, her best friend's apartment, on so many balcony’s. And after a month of this and no communication other than “more” and “harder,” some praise sprinkled in to fuel Lena’s kinks, it’s not surprising that Kara would expect something. But Lena is expecting something from Kara as well.

Hoping, always hoping despite herself, that Kara will tell her the truth. If only she could tell her, give her a reason for keeping this secret for so long, maybe then Lena could forget. Forget that Kara is Supergirl and just continue to see them as two separate people like she did before. Supergirl, caped crusader who sometimes saves her, Supergirl who also stabbed her in the back and Kara Danvers, faithful best friend who always believes in her and sometimes (more often than not recently) fucks her until she can’t walk straight.

Kara clears her throat and, “a friend date. Obviously, we’re best friends,” and laughs, “not like a real date because we’re just friends.” 

Lena starts fixing her mascara and can’t help the quip on her tongue, “friends who fuck each other for the entire weekend.”

Kara pauses for a moment, pondering over Lena’s statement like its new information, like she wasn’t just three knuckles deep not even an hour ago, “but we could be more, I’d.. if that’s something you’d want, I’d be okay with that.” 

Lena looks at Kara’s nervous, sincere expression reflecting in the mirror in front of her. What if they did?

If Kara couldn’t even tell her the truth while they were fucking, then why did Lena think she would if they were dating? 

Foolish, naive, so stupid.

“I don’t think that’s the best idea.”

“Okay, but.. Why not?”

Lena turns to face Kara then, maybe the anger hasn’t fully gone, and she hates the way her words bite when they leave her mouth, “Why should we?” 

Kara sighs and, “come on, I’m starving. Let’s just go eat.”

Their meal is quiet besides the sounds of Kara shoveling down more calories than Lena consumes in an entire month. How she never figured out that Kara is Supergirl is absolutely lost on her in this moment. 

Kara picks a little hole in the wall Chinese place within a block of her apartment. The friendly owners behind the counter greet them both by name, and for a second Lena can forget that everything has changed between them. 

For a minute she can exchange quick banter and watch Kara’s smile with awe like she used to before she murdered Lex, before she sought him out and had her entire world pulled out beneath her feet. Before she took her grief and poured it into a fucked up friends with benefits situation with Kara. Before she realized that she is in love with her best friend who also happens to still be lying to her about being National City’s resident superhero.

_Oh fuck. I’m in love with her._

Lena pushes her barely touched plate away and pulls her chair back. When she stands Kara’s eyes follow her.

“Where are you going?” 

“I need some air.” 

Kara slaps a twenty dollar bill on the table and follows after her, wiping her face on a dinner napkin.

“Lena, wait up. You can talk to me.” 

And Lena’s already out the door, Kara chasing her down the sidewalk when she turns and says, “But can you talk to me, Kara? Can you?” 

“Of course I can! I’ve been trying to for weeks,” she rushes to be in step with Lena and asserts, “you’ve been.. we’ve been in bed together nearly every night for a month, and every time I try to find out what’s going on in your head, it’s like you shut me out. And I know you’ve been going through a lot, and I’ve been selfish and taking advantage and I’m sorry. If you want to stop, we will, but my feelings for you are real. And I care about how you feel too, so if you just needed to blow off some steam then I’m fine with just being your best friend, but just.. tell me what you need.” 

_Need._

That damn word again. Lena needs honesty. And she needs Kara to love her back. But the two go hand in hand, and how can Kara love her if she can’t be honest with her? 

“Just forget it.”

“No.” 

Lena scoffs, “No?” 

Kara opens the door to her apartment building, stern face like when she’s telling Lena she’s beautiful, like when Supergirl told her she’s not like her mother. 

“I said, no. I need to tell you something, but not here.” 

And finally, finally Lena thinks. This is it.

 _iv. Depression_

_“Well, say something.”_

Lena’s eyes flash between the House of El crest, Kara’s naked face, and her own hands clenching in her lap. This was supposed to solve everything, but Lena just feels empty. 

“I already knew.” 

Kara sits down next to her and sighs in relief, “when did you figure it out? How long have you known?” 

Lena stiffens but goes for brutal honesty. There’s no more tears and her face sets into a scowl, “Since I put two bullets in my brother’s stomach, and he used his dying breath to tell me my best friend has been lying to me for years.” 

She stands from the couch and heads towards the door as Kara follows and begs, “Lena, please don’t go, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But if you knew this whole time why have you been.. why have we been fucking each other like rabbits? I understand if you hate me, I hate myself for not telling you. And like I said, I wanted to, really wanted to but I just, I didn’t want to hurt you.” 

“Well you fucking did hurt me, Kara. You fucking wrecked me, and I thought, I thought getting under you was the best way to get over you.” 

Tears flood down Kara’s cheeks and she asks, “Why would you need to get over me? If it was all just sex, then why?” 

Lena screams, her filter leaving her, “because I’m in love with you and I was foolish enough to believe that you could love me too!” 

Kara walks slowly towards her as her back hits the door, “you love me?” 

Lena squares her shoulders and steps out of Kara’s orbit. She thought that if Kara told her, then maybe they could salvage their relationship. But she just feels drained and exhausted and like revealing, confessing her love for Kara took the love itself from her heart, laid it at Kara’s feet and the facts still remain. The fact is her best friend lied to her. Her best friend slept with her for a month and still didn’t tell her. And all of the facts feel like shattered glass across the floor of Kara’s apartment as she walks out the door without another word. 

She lays in bed for a week after that. This new technology has hit the market, Obsidian Tech. And Lena gets lost in it. A virtual reality where Kara tells her she’s Supergirl, but every scenario hurts just the same because she knows it’s not real. 

She tries their first meeting, when Kara and Clark had come to her office to interrogate her about the Venture explosion.

 _Lucky is Superman saving the day._

_Not something you’d expect a Luthor to say._

_And Supergirl was there too._

_And who are you exactly?_

_Ummm, I’m, I’m Kara Danvers._

The entire scene plays out, but Kara doesn’t confess. Lena gasps out of the fake world and forces herself out of bed.

 _v. Acceptance_

_She's always been Kara Danvers_

She knocks on the steel door of Kara’s apartment and waits, the feeling of hope residing back in her chest and fluttering in her stomach.

Kara opens the door without her glasses, and Lena stares. She moves her hand to adjust her glasses that aren’t there, and stumbles to grab them from the entryway table and deposit them on her face. 

“You don’t have to wear those anymore. Not for my benefit. No more masks.” 

Kara takes them off and opens the door wider, “do you want to come in?” 

And Lena steps inside with all of the questions that have been eating at her for the past twenty four hours ready to find the answers she needs, “the first time you saved me, from the helicopter crash, you said ‘you’re safe, now,’ did you mean that?” 

Kara scrunches her eyebrows but answers, “yes, I promised I’d always protect you, I meant that too.” 

She clears her throat and asks, “and when we first met, did you believe I was genuine? That I wasn’t like my family?” 

Kara moves closer and eases her arm around Lena’s shoulder, “You’re not, and they don’t deserve you.” 

Lena dips her head onto Kara’s shoulder and asks, “Do you think that you do? Someone as damaged and broken as me? Someone who murders her own brother and..” 

"Lex wouldn’t have stopped until you were dead, and I would have destroyed the rest of this world from missing you until I found him and killed him myself.” 

The tears stream down Lena’s face then, “you told me who you were the first time we met, and I didn’t even realize it.” 

Kara looks at her, wipes a tear from her eye and squints, “I did?” 

“You’re always Kara Danvers. Even in the suit. And I’m always going to love you, even if I feel like I don’t deserve to love you.”

Kara leans in and whispers, “I love you,” and pours it all into one gentle kiss, “I’m in love with you, and I’ve been an absolute jerk by not telling you sooner. About the Supergirl thing, and the love thing. But please, don’t you ever say you don’t deserve to love again because you are breathtaking, wonderful, and extraordinary and I love every,” kiss, “single,” kiss, “part,” kiss, “of you.”

And Lena believes her, believes that Kara believes in her. And trusts her with her true self. And loves her. 

“Girlfriend huh?” 

“If that’s what you want, I mean we can just be friends if that’s better for you, strong female friendships are just as important as relationships and..” 

“Kara?”

“Yes, Lena?”

“Shut up and kiss your girlfriend.”


End file.
